Carrie Underwood's tweet sent numbers through the roof

Since her famous tweet scolding Tennessee lawmakers over “ag-gag” legislation, country music star Carrie Underwood has turned much of her attention to concerts, her upcoming Sunday Night Football gig â and the Oklahoma tornados.

“Growing up in tornado alley, you always know what could happen…. it doesn’t change how devastating it is when something does happen,” she tweeted and posted on Facebook right after the tornado in Moore, Okla., killed 24 people and left the community south of Oklahoma City in shambles.

But it was her April 18 tweet and Facebook post over the so-called ag-gag bill that generated a lot of attention in agricultural circles. This story on the Dairy Herd Management web site generated nearly 64,000 page views on April 22-23 when the story was first reported. That is a phenomenally high number, along with number of reader comments â 87.

Reader interest subsided from there, but Underwood still had a few parting shots on her Facebook page:

On April 19, she posted a link to this article on ag-gag. The article included a comment from state representative Andy Holt suggesting that Underwood stick to singing. That prompted Underwood to comment, “I should stick to singing? Wow…. sorry, I’m just a tax paying citizen concerned for the safety of my family.”

On April 25, she posted a link to this commercial from the Humane Society of the United States.

On May 13, she posted “Great news!” in response to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s veto of the ag-gag legislation.

On Tuesday, Dairy Herd Management sent an e-mail to Underwood’s publicist, asking if the country music star still feels the same way about the ag-gag issue. So far, there has not been an answer. But if an answer does come, it will be included here.

Ag-gag (or farm protection legislation) is not going away. While it may have played out in Tennessee for now, a number of other states are dealing with similar measures. In 2012, Missouri and Utah passed their own laws, while Indiana, Illinois and Nebraska had bills that died in committee or were tabled to a later date. This year, there were bills in New Hampshire and New Mexico that did not make it to the legislature.

Farm protection legislation will be the focus of an article in the July issue of Dairy Herd Management. Among other things, the article will point out the need for farmers to be proactive in the social media and tell their side of the story â similar to what Underwood has done with Twitter and Facebook.